


The Paces

by StumblingBlock



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Clandestine Fluff, And His Social Calendar Is Completely Full Up, Angst, Dan is Not in His Happy Place, Drug Addiction, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, Kind of Lowkey Humor, Lots of Rude Language, M/M, Or Biphobia I Guess, Phil Is Like a Quarter Psychic, Predictions, Unlikely Friendships, phil is still a Youtuber, this story is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 08:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7215670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StumblingBlock/pseuds/StumblingBlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to the actions of a clueless high schooler three long years ago, Dan really doesn't see the point in investing in having a future anymore.  And he's fine with that.</p><p>The weirdo with the hair who's deluding himself into thinking Dan is some kind of destined BFFL, however, keeps raising objections.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Rude.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: ha ha, my excuse to be depressing!

_1.) The Mistake_

                The only thing going on in his head right now is how badly he’s straining to be invisible.  That’s not like Dan.  He’s the guy who’s always desperate for attention—ask anybody.  He’ll make you laugh or more often he’ll make you roll your eyes; not half as funny as he thinks he is, so he’ll just keep trying and pushing it until everyone’s worn down to the bone with being sick of him and he’ll still be there, ready to play any game you want that still means being himself, whatever himself is. 

                Now here he is sat in a crowd of people and hoping he’ll just evaporate, like air, like marijuana smoke, post directly to anywhere but fucking here.

                _I’m not here_ , he thinks, prays, begs, _No one can see me._   _Invisible like always._

                “Where’s Dan?”  Someone calls again and his heart stops.  “Dan?  Where you at, mate?”

                The really awful part is that if his jaw hadn’t just welded itself shut, he might try to answer.  It’s someone else who volunteers him.  He looks up.  He’s met with a smile. 

                “You’ll give it a go too, yeah?”

                And his head goes, _maybe it’ll work, maybe I’ll feel better._

                And his head goes, _“try new things!” everyone always says that; be confident and be daring—_

                And yeah, he already knows that this isn’t what anyone meant with that generic, pointless advice, but his head goes, _if you already know that, it’ll be fine, nothing is going to happen, Christ, look around, these people are your_ friends _._

He wants to cry.

                “Yeah, man,” he says—like a fucking robot—and sticks out a hand like _get it over with_ , doctor’s office inoculation and he’s _fine_.

                He’s fine.  He’s fine.  He’s fine.  He doesn’t feel sick at all.

 

 

  
_2.) The Life_

                The years move faster the older you get.  That’s just science, or whatever. 

                Time just drifts by and nah, man; you don’t ever get to find out where it goes, or if it’s all added up in any significant way.  Dan just paces it by the glow of the computer screen and his brain’s attempts to self-destruct at a dead-end service industry job and how long he can avoid the next phone call from his mum and all her inevitable disappointment.

                His friends aren’t his friends anymore, and Dan has kind of figured out you don’t need a lot of friends after high school.  He doesn’t need the camouflage anymore.  Doesn’t need much of anything.  Sometimes he’s sad about that, but most of the time he doesn’t feel much one way or another, just lets the hours spill by until one of two things happen: something corners him where he can’t get away and he has to face it, or he gets himself happy.

                It’s being older too, that makes it so he can’t get happy the way he used to.  Time flows by quicker and quicker, until it’s outright sprinting and he’s just going to open up his eyes one morning and be a million years old and dying.  In the same way, Dan’s avenues of self-indulgence narrow.  But even when he’s that million year old geezer, he’ll still know how to get himself happy even if there’s no more music and acting is kind of just for poofs anyway and books are just a lot of trouble when he’s got to feed himself. 

                He’ll always know how to get happy.  Fuck everyone else.  They don’t get to take this away from him.

                H.A.P.P.Y.

                It’s the prize he gets for clinging to functional when there’s clearly something too wrong with him to contemplate, when he shouldn’t have ever been born.

                And he loves it.

  
  
  
_3.) The Missed Opportunity_

                The internet’s not so bad, though, between doses (he’s not stupid, he knows he’s supposed to be miserable at least 90% of the time if he doesn’t want to wind up dead.  He’s already seen that happen to people he knows and he’s not doing that to his mum after everything else).  It makes the hours flow by quicker and it’s three am before he even realizes it.  He’s too tired to go to sleep.  Is that a thing?  Yeah, it’s a thing.  The world reels behind his closed eyelids, makes him seasick.

                Sometimes he feels like he’s on the very cusp of happiness, the kind that people mean when they talk about being happy, some semi-permanent conscious state that tallies up accomplishments and laughter and maybe people who could like him some, not just say they love him, maybe that could be a thing.  Like it’s still _there_ , and he hasn’t outgrown his own potential; if he just reaches for it—

                But he’s always going to get sick right after he thinks that, always so tired, and the only reason he’ll close his eyes is because the electric blue of the computer screen starts to burn too much and he’ll pass out before his nausea can prod them back open.  He has to go to work anyway, so it’s for the best.  He resents it.

                That’s life.

 

 

_4.) Dan Howell_

                He asks himself in the mirror what the fuck he’s doing, just for kicks.  The look on his reflection’s face says he doesn’t know either.

                He knows it’s supposed to be better, though, because it’s obvious, because that’s what everyone says.

                There’s something so wrong with him, that he can’t feel that.  
  
  
  
_5.) The Paces_

                And he’s sat at work when it happens, debating on whether to just abandon the register since Katie never came back from break and he’s going to eat his own hand if he doesn’t get some lunch soon.  It’s actually a debate for Dan, you see, because he’s enough of a bloody idiot that he doesn’t just skiv off.  He _should_.  Nobody gives a bloody shit about what the employees do as long as it doesn’t break federal laws.  There’s just apparently some idiot part of Dan that likes the fact that he’s sat uselessly in an empty store because it’s his job, when he could be getting food. 

                It’s not integrity.  It’s masochism.

                God, he hates it here.

                He’s reached the point where he’s trying to pick out the most violent insinuations of murder the pockmarks in the ceiling can provide, because he loves to give himself nightmares to deal with in his crappy single flat, when the bell on the front entrance dings.  He dips his head so he can offer Katie the full impact of his scathing glare.

                It’s not Katie.  It’s a group of three blokes who Dan instantly pegs for gay because they all have ridiculous levels of fringe and one of them is wearing the brightest neon shirt he’s ever seen.  Mainly, though, they’ve got to be gay because the one with the obviously bottled black hair has just got a socially unacceptable level of excited about the sweets display by the door. 

               Dan muffles his scowl behind a hand, observing the wild homosexual in its natural habitat.  It involves a lot of flailing gesticulation and grinning, also black-hair nearly upends the sweets display by smacking a hand into it, much to the head shaking of his companions.

               Dan thinks uncharitable things about what they’ll probably be up to with each other this evening.  It’ll make a good story for whoever Dan stumbles into conversation with.  _Get this, saw the biggest poofters in shop today, I bet as soon as they get home…_

                Curly-hair and his shorter sidekick trundle back towards the drinks.  Black-hair is already coming to the register.  Dan sighs prematurely in expectation of actual interaction, but straightens anyway, not forgetting to take a moment to resent Katie.  He’s meant to be on _break_.  Sod everything.

                “Can I have this one?”  Black-hair asks, with excitement due from a small child that has secured his mum’s permission.  He has selected:

 a peanut lion bar.

                Dan feels this overwhelming urge to sigh at the world.  He recites the pricing, and acts like the robot he is: accept money, relocate appropriately, count out change, return to buyer.  Beep-boop, _thank you for your patronage_.  When he hands over the coins, though, black-hair’s smile has dimmed a bit.  Dan’s shoulders automatically rise.

                He can’t do a lecture on his customer service today.  Not from the guy who smiles at the fucking lion bars.  He knows his attitude is shit, but if grandma didn’t sort him out, black-hair has no chance and Dan doesn’t want to listen to it.

                “You alright?”  Black-hair asks.  Dan blinks.

                That almost sounds like genuine concern.

                “…Fine.”

                “You’re looking pale,” says black-hair, and Dan lets his eyes drag purposefully down what—aside from the hair—really should qualify for albinism.  He’s being grinned at when he looks back up.  “Yeah!  If you compare to me, you know you’ve got to look really rubbish, right?”

                Dan looks eternally rubbish, but he appreciates it being pointed out to him.  He’s not entirely sure this isn’t black-hair trying to hit on him either. 

                Right, he doesn’t know why _anyone_ would do that either, but the weirdest fucking things take place behind this cash register.  You’d never imagine.  Dan has had someone try to sell him a juvenile rhinoceros before, and he really wishes he was kidding.

                “Fine,” he stresses, in the interest of not having complaints filed against him.  “Just a bit hungry.”

                “Oh no!”

                Dan is pretty sure that statement doesn’t merit an _oh no_.  He glares at black-hair, trying to figure out his angle.  “I can buy you something,” black-hair is going eagerly, “What would you like?”

                Dan’s glare darkens.  Why on earth would he want any of the crap sold here?  He’s surrounded by it all day long.  If he wanted some, oh yes, the checkout is entirely too high and precarious for him to escape and have some crisps.  That logic is sound.

                “Terrorizing someone again, are you?”  Drawls the curly-haired poof, rejoining them with a handful of drinks that he spreads on the checkout.  His friend tosses a few crisp bags on there too and Dan turns away to ring it up, relieved to have something else to do.  “Don’t mind Phil.  He’s had a long day and we forbade animal facts two towns over.”

                “Phil, no,” the shorter one sighs, “You’re not still on about the platypuses, are you?”  
                _Oh dear god_ , Dan thinks, rapidly counting out change.  Of course it’s when he’s alone in the store that the crazy poofs come in.  He’s probably going to get stabbed.

                “I did not even slightly bring up trivia,” black-hair protests, wide-eyed as Dan turns around to hand over the change.  He darts his gaze towards Dan pleadingly, which Dan ignores, and in return nearly gets poked in the eye by one flailing albino hand.  “He’s just not looking well, is all, what, am I not allowed to be concerned?”

                “Maybe the grown-ass gentleman can figure that one for himself?”  Curly-hair points out wisely—

                _Thank you,_ Dan thinks irritably.  Can they not just haul off from the store?

                “But you are looking a bit peaky there, mate,” the shorter one says, earning a glare from Dan. 

                _Can you fucking not?_

                “Just saying.”  And then the bell dings again—Dan looks up, and of course it’s Katie, now, open-mouthed as she takes in the men surrounding the checkout.  Katie.  This is all Katie’s fault.  Phil is asking him,

                “You don’t want to pass out, do you?”

                And Dan, well, he just loses it.

                “Well, thank my lucky stars!”  He exclaims, flinging his hands into the air, “My coworker has arrived and it’s only twenty minutes into my scheduled lunch break; I can _at last_ address the very pressing concern of my malnutrition and stop offending the planet’s most medically gifted albinos, yeah?”  Because he does not want to be fired, he does not actually chuck his nametag at Katie, who’s got her mouth still hanging open, probably because that is the most words Dan has ever said to her.  “I am having a bloody sandwich,” Dan announces, to anyone who cares as he fumbles his way out of checkout, “And Katie, yeah, she loves platypus trivia.  _Loves_ it.” 

                At this point he is aware that he is being laughed at. 

                Being older has also helped Dan accept that he’s not particularly funny, and he’s not trying to be now, but he still throws a glance behind him for half a second.  He sees Phil, leaned against the checkout and giggling, mouth hidden behind his hand and eyes all scrunched up with mirth.

                This great oversized manchild—and there’s this bitter little thought that if he’d maybe had someone who’d laugh at his jokes like that, maybe Dan wouldn’t have grown up into such a mess.  Of course that’s all rubbish.  Dan being a fuckup was basically destiny.

                And he’s much too enthralled with the notion of a sandwich to stick around any longer, so he storms out the door and that’s that.

 ----

                Not often he lets himself get happy twice in one day when it’s not the weekend, but he needs to calm his nerves.  He’s all ruffled.  He never lets himself lose his temper like that.  So fucking inappropriate.  The manager is going to give him a talking to. 

                Time turns to sludge and Dan can’t be bothered to worry about it anymore—  
 

                —and then he runs into Phil at Starbucks. 

                Dan recognizes the guy by how much hair he’s got, and then at once dismisses him as irrelevant to the incoming caffeine fix.  It is not as though Dan himself will be remembered.

                Unfortunately, Dan doesn’t get the luxury of being invisible when he lost his temper in such a spectacular fashion the day before.  Phil actually shouts when they make eye contact.  Dan jumps so hard he sloshes coffee down his front.

                Ten minutes later and Dan is still being barraged with apologies.  He’s got a raging headache, a new cup of coffee, and a stack of napkins in front of him to help blot up the wet patch on his shirt.  He already hates his day.  He’s pretty sure he also hates Phil, it’s just not as homicidal as it was when he was dripping coffee on his shoes.  Now he just really hates the amount of words Phil is capable of producing in a span of time.

                He should just go home.  Today is a bust, and it’s not like he goes to work for reasons outside of being shouted at anyway.  He’s easily replaceable.  Anyone on shift can cover him.

                Effort is being exerted to ignore the apology-strewn disaster coming out of Phil’s mouth, but Dan isn’t doing as good a job as he’d like, because he knows three new facts about marsupials. 

                He hates this guy.  Phil tried to give Dan his coffee order too, and Dan refused it on principle, because there’s absolutely nothing about this guy not worth despising, especially not his taste in coffee, but then Phil insisted on buying him another of Dan’s order, and just had to remark, “oh, you’re having the same.”

                Dan prays in vain for Phil’s gay companions to come rescue him.  This doesn’t happen.

                No, Phil treats him to breakfast.

 ----

                “You’re still looking out of sorts, though,” he says, as Dan—having surrendered to the insanity of this morning and gotten some beans on toast—chews.  Dan scowls at him.  Today Phil is wearing a neon jumper with animal print all over it.  His hair is a flawless, straightened object of intense envy.  His skin could be seen from space.  Dan has successfully noticed the color of his eyes, which defies description.

                “I always look like this,” Dan posits, figuring that will shut Phil up.

                “No, that can’t be,” Phil mutters.  “It just doesn’t look right.  You’re meant to be a bit more…”  He gestures, incomprehensibly.  Dan still has a headache.  “Though I have no idea why I’d think that.  Maybe we knew each other in a past life or something.  We could have gone to uni together in an alternate dimension!”

                “Not likely,” Dan mutters, having made it through about three months of uni himself.  He doubts any other incarnations of himself did a better job. 

                Phil startles him by laughing, and Dan tenses slightly, squinting up.  He’s being smiled at.

                “No, just—“  Phil tries to swallow the smile down, but it crops back up, making behemoths of his cheekbones that have Dan questioning, for the umpteenth time, why he is having breakfast with this man.  “Sorry, I thought you were trying to be funny.  With the, you know, the eyebrow thing.”  He looks a little bit sheepish as Dan scowls at him.  And then, tempting fate, “You are right funny, though!”

                Dan sets his fork down.  “There are eligible gay men in this town,” he says flatly.  “Better luck next time.”

                Phil does this thing where he flails his hands and also seems to choke a bit—laughs again, and yeah, sure, coming from the guy who got all excited about the lion bar, maybe you’d expect a laugh like that. 

                Breathless and genuine, like a little burst of warmth between Dan’s ribs. 

                “Oh my gosh, no!  I’m not—“  He laughs again, helplessly.  “Oh man.  No, okay, you’re right, I do sort of want something from you, but nothing like _that_.”

                Dan feels a little shiver of alarm.  He doesn’t know Phil, and it’s not like town’s that big even if Dan does keep to himself.  There’s a handful of reasons strangers might come looking for him, especially ones that look like city guys.  Granted, he’s never seen any pushers quite as eccentric as this one, but that doesn’t mean—

                “I’d like you to be in a documentary I’m doing,” Phil says.  He wrinkles his nose up.  “Well, me, Chris, and Peej are doing.  It’s about young British culture—super legit—“ he waves a hand wildly to assure Dan of this “—and I just thought you’d be really entertaining when we met the other day.  And then we ran into each other again here, out of all the possible Starbucks.  Seriously.  Must be fate, don’t you think?”

                “Come again,” says Dan, flatly, because he’s still stuck on the notion the word ‘documentary.’

 ----

                As it turns out, the three poofs—alright, _Northerners_ ; the appeal of calling them poofs wears off the more legitimate they are—are doing this for some little alternative network hoping to capitalize on the teenage audience by celebrating the fuck ups that they all are.  Well, Phil makes it sound better than that, but that’s the gist; a salute to mediocrity and reckless behavior that Dan turns down at once. 

                “I have an absolutely packed social life,” he deadpans, and Phil makes this exaggerated sad face at him before breaking into more snickering. 

                “Well, if you change your mind,” he says, and that is how Dan ends up with his phone number.

 ----

                Two days later he’s in the shop—and no, Dan didn’t call him, are you _thick?—_ and not for Dan.  He’s here to interview _Katie_.  She’s over the moon about it.  All done up and blushing as they head into the back room.  If Phil weren’t so flaming, Dan might suspect something was up.

                As they leave, Phil gives her some kind of ridiculous pocket-sized pink cat toy.  It is somehow just as charming as it is awkward.  He throws Dan a wink on his way out the door.

                Definitely gay, Dan decides.

 ----

                He’s preoccupied with whatever—there must be something, yeah?  It’s just not worth remembering.  The only real relevance is that Dan doesn’t notice that he’s running out of his shit—bad end to a bad week.  So Dan is getting clean for the weekend, whether he likes it or not. 

                Seriously.  He can snarl “fuck” into the constriction of his fingers as much as he likes; what else is he to do?  His dealer is the nine to five sort, and… maybe Dan knows where to go when Randall isn’t there, but Randall is the _nice_ one, everyone agrees, and the weekend crowd isn’t anything he’d like to tangle with. 

                He hangs in until about 8 pm and that cinches it—absolutely can’t go after dark, because that would just be asking for trouble.

                But he’s already putting on his coat.

                Time has ground to a halt and each second is itching, painful, frantic—he just wants to calm down—

                And there’s this moment where Dan is absolutely furious, at himself for being so fucking pathetic and at the drug for being able to do this to him and at the whole world for making a Dan Howell when obviously that wasn’t supposed to be a thing.

                A few seconds later that anger propels him out the door.  He deserves what’s coming to him.  Doesn’t even fight it.  It’ll be _better_ if he gets his throat fucking slit.

                All paths lead to the same outcome, and he pinches the bridge of his nose as he walks, fighting back the burn in his eyes.  Stupid that he even waited so long.  Now he’s emotional.  Should have gotten his fix way before now, stupid, stupid, stupid.

 ----

                He doesn’t actually get his throat slit.  
  
 ----

                Someone from the crowd clogging up the alleyway actually recognizes him instead, gets friendly with him, drawing him close with an arm around his neck and parading him to the group like they’re best mates.  Dan smiles queasily and plays along.  They laugh at his shakes.  “About gagging for it, aren’t you?  Here you go, love, get your fix.”

                And he does.

                Everybody is laughing and smiling, happy right along with him, and then Dan is laughing too and the world spins.

                He loves the way it’s so simple, a tidy list of ordered facts.

                These are his friends.  This is him happy.  That is all he needs.

                “Want another?”  Someone asks, knowing just what he needs and of course Dan wants another, _fuck yeah, man,_ and they don’t stop, so he doesn’t stop either, and that must be why his week was such shit.  It’s all relative.  It’s so this can be the best night of his life.


	2. Chapter One

_6) Too Tired for Love_

                Next thing Dan knows he’s getting pulled out of the gutter. 

                His thoughts are goo.  It’s heavy all over, and struggling against that weight only makes him feel more sick.  He groans in refusal, trying to sink back down, but whoever’s got him is stronger, and Dan ends up vomiting all over the both of them.  He does not feel better afterwards.  He just realizes how fucking cold he is, shaking all over, teeth suddenly rattling. 

                His head throbs like it’s getting knocked into with a sledgehammer.  He can’t stop gagging.  He’s been let down onto his knees and—is someone holding his hair back?

                Fuck, he can’t even tell.  The world in front of his eyes is swimming, and everything hurts.

                Eventually he has nothing left to get out of his stomach, and he’s just left feeling like this hollow, brittle, chilled framework of pain on the pavement.  No way can he stand up.

                A warm arm loops around his stomach.  Dan goes willingly as he’s pulled upright.  Warmth doesn’t exactly feel great right now, but he needs it.

                He manages to lift his head enough to identify the source of that warmth.

                …Phil?

                Maybe he mutters something to that effect, because he gets shot between the eyes with those huge, blue-green-gold eyes and nearly passes out. 

                Technicolor, high-definition, swirling through the sensory functions.  Too much.

                “Yeah,” Phil goes.  He looks worried.  “Think you might be pretty sick after all, Dan.”

                He calls a taxi round while Dan leans into his side, shivering violently, and glumly confirming that he’s down a wallet, his jacket, and all his self-respect, but at least the keys to his flat are still in his shoe, where he thought to hide them.

                He hasn’t really reached the point where he can process that he could have died tonight, being so fucking _stupid_.  He might never.  Death is a fleeting concept. 

                He grabs Phil’s sleeve.  “I’m not going to hospital.”

                Phil’s expression shifts.  Has he caught on yet?  Dan wants to choke out some kind of laugh and he also wants to cry.  What is this guy even _doing_?  Sure, Dan got high and could have fucking killed himself, but who plays nice guy to an obvious fucking druggie? 

                “I’m good,” Dan makes himself choke out.  “I’m good now.”

                And Phil nods.

                “Alright.  Where’s yours?”  
  
                Dan tells the cabbie.  Phil rides with him all the way to the shittiest part of town, and Dan can’t really remember when it happens, but he’s got Phil’s jacket on by the time they pull up.  He tries to fumble it off, but he can’t properly manage and Phil stops him.

                “I’ll want it back,” he says, “But for now, keep it.  Take care.”

                Idiot.  Twat.  Dumbshit.

                Kindness is probably worse to overdose on, so Dan can comfort himself knowing Phil is probably just going to get hit by a bus.  He makes it to bed and collapses there, burrowing under the blankets until they gnaw the shivers away. 

                He’s in so much fucking pain.  Too much pain to sleep.  He drags his laptop over and lets the electric lights burn his eyes shut, and if his cheeks are wet, that’s fine; he doesn’t even care.  He sleeps it off.  He lives.

                He deserves it.

 ----

                When he comes into work, he gets yelled at for all the time he took off relearning how to move his limbs.  Dan spends this wearing his most attentive face, chewing a strip of gum he managed to bum off of Katie by looking appropriately like shit.  Once his manager leaves, Dan promptly reverts back to his unimpressed self and sprawls against the checkout in boredom until Katie uses her leverage to make him go restock.  Dan trudges along with individual soup servings, hating his life and desperately ignoring the world around him.  He bumps directly into a customer. 

                That customer, because the universe hates him, is Phil.

                Dan spends a long moment blinking at Phil, reliving the events of the weekend—he then decides his best option is to shuck off Phil’s coat, drop it at Phil’s clown feet and immediately dart in the other direction before either of them are forced to interact.  Phil grabs his arm. 

                “Oh my god, let go,” Dan growls, yanking on it.

                “Hey, I took you home,” Phil protests, deceptively as though nothing has changed and Dan is still the same person he bought coffee for.  All pleasant and upbeat.  God.  Dan wants to shout at him.  “I’m at least owed a conversation, yeah?”

                Dan throws him the most blistering look he can manage.  “I didn’t ask for your fucking assistance.”

                For a moment, Phil looks taken aback.  Honestly, Dan is kind of taken aback himself.  He’s never this confrontational.  Maybe he just feels a bit more like the person Phil saw last night.  He’s dangerous.  He’s on the edge.  People cross to the other side of the street to avoid him and his friends dump him like a piece of trash on the side of the road once they’ve got his coat off him while he’s too stoned to walk.

                Then Phil’s jaw sets and Dan just gets this sinking feeling.  “Tough,” Phil says, “You’re stuck with me, now let’s pretend you’re not rude and step outside.”  He picks his coat up while Dan furiously chews the inside of his lip.  Phil pushes it at Dan’s chest.  “It’s cold out,” he offers softly.

                Dan bloody knows it’s cold out, alright?  But the coat back on his shoulders and he follows Phil, silencing Katie with a black look as she puffs up about him taking an early break.  The shop will endure the next five seconds without Dan’s presence.  The door dings shut and Dan stops walking at once.  
  
                “What,” he demands.

                “For one, I just wanted to know you were okay,” Phil says, in his relentlessly idiotic fashion.  “You haven’t been in the past couple of days.”

                Dan chews his lip some more and—probably because Phil’s is perfect—feels the need to aggressively sort out his fringe.  “Been hungover, haven’t I?”  He ends up muttering, sullen.  “It doesn’t just wear off.”

                “Well, how am I supposed to know?”  Phil’s voice raises and Dan glances up, met with a frown.  “I’m not exactly experienced in dealing with that sort of thing, Dan!”

                Obviously not.  Dan spreads his hands, confused, and helpless, and bloody pissed.

                “Yeah, cause it’s not your problem, is it?  It’s mine.  You’ve just got your perfect life and your sorted priorities—“

                “Oh, my life is far from perfect,” Phil snaps, and Dan just wants to throw his coat at him and storm away, but let’s face it, he’s just not that kind of druggie.  His fists just ball in the pockets, buried to keep them safe, and he says through his gritted teeth,

                “What’s this about, Phil?  Why are you hanging around me?”

                “I don’t know!”  Phil bursts out.  “I don’t know, Dan.  I think you’re funny, and I wanted to know more about you as soon as we talked, but this is clearly the point where anyone in their right mind starts running in the opposite direction, right?  But every time I think about just not seeing you again, I swear it just feels wrong.  I can’t leave you alone.”

                Dan is somewhere in the fifty, sixty percent range of thinking he might have received his first gay confession, but mostly he’s just scowling.  “You absolutely can.”

                Phil crosses his arms.  “My gran was psychic.”

                That’s so out of left field, Dan just puts his face in his hands outright.  “ _What?_ ”

                “She was psychic,” claims the evidently crazy man in front of him, “And I predict things sometimes, and sometimes things happen for a reason, so if it’s bothering me this much, about you, then there’s a reason for it.  You’re important, Dan.”

                “I am not interested in the Avengers initiative,” Dan shoots back, “You don’t even _live_ here.  When are you going home?”

                “My favorite show is Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Phil declares, stubborn.  “I think Sarah Michelle Gellar is the most beautiful woman on the planet and I make YouTube videos and my favorite game right now is probably Mario Kart and I prefer the color blue.”

                “You know what?”  Dan snaps, heaving his face up.  “No.  Not doing this.  I’m going back inside, seeing to my job, and we’re never speaking again.”

 ----

                It’s two days before he finds himself on Phil’s couch, midway through Buffy season one, stuffed with entirely too much popcorn, and naysaying every statement Phil makes about the characters, just because he can.  It’s not Dan’s fault he’s being such a dreadful guest.  Phil keeps encouraging him by laughing a lot about it, and Dan figured out a half hour ago that if he makes a statement himself, Phil will shoot it down with the most passive-aggressive form of sarcasm in the world. 

                They drove PJ and Chris off around when Angel introduced himself, because they are both being highly obnoxious.

                And Dan itches all over, but he can skip a hit for the night and if his laughter comes out too loud and his next comment is too sharp, too mean, Phil doesn’t even know him well enough to have a problem with it.

                He knows nothing about these guys.  They could properly be gay (not that it really matters so much, Jesus, Dan doesn’t even know why he keeps cycling back to that one), or they could kidnap and murder people or their documentary could be a front for illicit dealings.  He still falls asleep on their couch.  Phil already knows he’s fallen asleep in worse places. 

                Dan wakes up with a blanket over him and Phil tucked in on himself against the sofa arm, muffling snores into his elbow, feet burrowed under Dan’s blanket.

                So.  Dan isn’t dead.

                Phil looks startlingly young with his eyes shut.  Or maybe it’s the messy fringe. 

                Dan puts his face in his hands.

                “What am I doing?”  He asks, and like usual, no one has any answers for him.

 

                By Friday, Dan figures Phil may have informed him on every animal in the Serengeti. 

                Mind, Dan does not care about the color of hippo milk, nor the maternal behavior of lion mothers.  He will apparently hear about those anyway.

                By Tuesday, Dan has protested the amount of sweets Phil keeps giving him, first of all because they’re dreadfully fat and second of all because he’s fenced in on all sides by them in the shop.  “I don’t like them anymore, Phil,” he grumbles.  “I binged for a while and then it lost its appeal because they’re fucking disgusting.”

                Phil makes a big show of covering his ears with his hands and chewing harder.  They keep walking down the shopping center, huddled in against the nipping wind, Dan’s new coat hugged around him like a furnace.  Phil’s hat is tucked over his snowy white ears.  There’s quite a crowd today.  Everyone is doing their holiday shopping.

                Phil said he hadn’t gotten his presents sorted yet.  He hasn’t bought a bloody thing and somehow or another, Dan wound up looking through the discount coats.  He’s beginning to think of this as typical.

                PJ and Chris ditched them right off, because Phil is at his Phil-est.  Dan isn’t so sick of the animal impressions that he’s willing to interfere when Phil is in a mood to make his stomach hurt, which, according to the other two, means Dan is an ‘enabler.’  Even Phil’s smile dimmed a bit and Dan widened his, sardonic and sharp at his shoes.

                Right, yeah, sure.

                Anyway, their point is that Dan and Phil are intolerable together.

                “What sort of things do you like, Dan?”  Phil asks, earnest and cheeks ever so slightly pinked under the wind, like a storybook character because he’s—

                —well, he’s nothing like Dan.

                So Dan indulges him, Dan makes something up that he likes.

                And by the weekend, Phil comes round to Dan’s and Dan makes him dinner like a proper, functioning human, and then they go through Dan’s meager DVD collection and Phil expresses surprise over two things.

                “Didn’t think you’d have so many,” he says, open-mouthed as Dan digs through his things to keep adding to the stack.  Dan stares him down over one shoulder.

                “Figure I’d have sold them all for a good time?”

                “Um,” Phil says, brow creasing.  He goes a little pink again.  Dan’s mouth softens.

                “Also,” Phil pipes up, after they’ve looked through it all, “You’re a massive nerd.  Good to know.  I thought you might not be.”

                A laugh bubbles out of Dan’s stomach, stifled in his fist.  “What, you’re saying my anime recommendations weren’t enough of a hint?”

                “You could be faking it,” Phil insists.  “A poseur nerd, if you will.”

                “I’ll have you know, you could never come across as anything less than fully legitimate,” Dan says sweetly, and Phil shoves him, then sits there with his hands in his lap and his tongue poking out, giggling at his success as Dan shakes his head.  Phil doesn’t want to leave after Game of Thrones, so they watch some Walking Dead.  And then there’s always Doctor Who.  Favorite episodes, all of them, sorting through life to pick and choose the moments that are worth repeating.  And then they’re watching Winnie the Pooh on Dan’s laptop, and it doesn’t even matter, about being blokes or adults or Dan resting against Phil’s shoulder the way they are.  Dan’s eyes burn.

                “It’s late,” he says.

                “Yeah,” Phil murmurs back.  His voice has gotten softer all night.  By the time Dan flung an arm around him just to stay upright (while the select moments that still only exist before his life went to shit started to play, maybe he just needs the help), Phil was all but whispering.  He’s hugged around Dan’s waist too. 

                He makes Dan feel small, which is patently untrue and very ridiculous.  “What’s the matter?”  
  
                “Nothing,” Dan says, swiping at his eyes.  “I’m just tired.  Fuck.”  His breath hitches.  “ _Fuck_.”

                Phil pulls on him and Dan doesn’t bother resisting for very long.  He’s already figured out about Phil’s sneaky hugs midway through the week. 

                His breath rattles in his chest.  Phil encases him in warmth and squeezes down, bit by bit, until Dan is just shaking, secure inside a disaster waiting to happen.  Mt. Vesuvius mark two. 

                “I’m tired,” he croaks again, and Phil nods.

                “It’s late.”

                He makes no move to let Dan go.

                _I don’t want to wake up_ , Dan thinks, painfully clearly.  _I don’t ever want to wake up.  Please don’t make me._

 ----

                Phil does ask Dan about the documentary again, and Dan laughs to his face.  “You’re joking,” he scoffs.  “Yeah, let’s have the drug abuser stand as an example for all of England.”  Phil flinches at the word.  They don’t use the word.  Dan looks down.  He sort of wants to apologize.

                Phil murmurs, “Or, and just throwing this out there, you could be the guy that quit.”  
  
                “You’re joking,” Dan mutters, hugging his arms to himself.

                “Guess so,” Phil answers, looking at him.

 

                It’s not that Dan doesn’t think it’s weird—them being like this—but Phil exists in his own little world.  In Phil’s world, you make friends based on destiny or some shit, and you wear your heart on your sleeve and you talk about imaginary universes made of candy floss until three am, and just for kicks, you don’t throw the obviously negative influences out of your life.

                No, you get them to sing Shakira with you in the early morning to wake your other, less insane friends up for pancakes. 

                So yeah, maybe it’s weird to have Phil stopping by the shop every day.  Weird that they have plans every evening, and that Dan finds himself trading whispered secrets to Phil during the Giles monologues and Phil compensates him with such dorky little smiles.  They barely know anything about each other that’s important.

                It’s all weird, and the coworkers giving Dan strange looks—they’re the right ones, the normal ones.  Phil’s friends shaking their heads at them—they’re right.  That weighing dread in Dan’s stomach is right.

                But he’s in Phil-world now.  He wants it to mean something.  Dan wants a quantifiable interaction he could piece the rest of it around, even retroactively, because that means it can’t just vanish.  Dan is showing Phil how to make curry when Dan finally just kisses him. 

                It’s not so impulsive that Dan hasn’t already worked out that Phil is into boys sometimes.  It’s impulsive enough that Dan is the one who breaks it and stumbles back with only a spatula and a deep sense of panic.

                Phil’s gaze follows, terrifyingly foreign, but then he blinks and it’s gone.  He’s just smiling at Dan calmly. 

                “I didn’t know you were bisexual.”  That’s all he says.

                “I’m not,” Dan goes, on autopilot.  “I mean, I thought, in middle school, but it was confusing, and then I got a girlfriend, and I wasn’t, I like girls, 90% of the time at least, and—“

                Phil is laughing.  It’s an unusually soft laugh from him.  Almost sad.  “I’m sorry,” Dan blurts.  “I shouldn’t have done that without asking.”  
  
                “Uh oh, you’re right!  Abhorrent!”  Phil slaps a hand to his cheek in alarm, which actually does startle Dan before he shrugs and grins to him, “But I guess I forgive you anyway.  Also, was this meant to be smoking?”

                “ _Shit_ ,” Dan exclaims, and the kiss is forgotten in favor of trying to rescue dinner, which they manage to do very narrowly, and this is not in any small amount due to using a truly amazing amount of sauce.  As soon as they sit down to eat, Dan, who has spent the past hour starved and cantankerous, immediately has no appetite. 

                He just fidgets there, trying not to look at Phil.  Or at least, trying not to look like he’s looking at him in, you know, an obvious way.

                Phil gives Dan a good-natured grin.  “Dan, you really don’t have to worry about it.  It’s okay.”

                “Okay to,” Dan gestures.  _Do more?_

                Phil seems to understand though, and his smile dims a little.  “Better we don’t,” he says. 

                And it’s not like Dan was expecting anything (oh, he totally was), so he has no reason for his heart to sink into his stomach.  His palms sweat, so he hides them under the table.  “Oh.  Yeah.  Right.  Long distance and—no.”

                Phil doesn’t deny that, but he doesn’t say that’s it either, just resumes eating.  Dan stares at his food in a state of intense concentration.

                “I haven’t been using,” he says, abruptly.  “Nowhere near as much lately.  I’m down by at least half what I normally do.”

                In terms of the desperate shit Dan has said in his life, that one is probably pretty far up there. 

                Hell, what is he even arguing for?  He’s not gay, barely even bi; it’s not like he _wants_ this. 

                And it’s not—he’s not getting better.  He’s just busier with Phil hanging around all the time.  It takes time and preparation to take a hit, yeah.  And he just doesn’t think about it because he hasn’t got the time.  The moment Phil walks away, he’s just—he’s still broken in all those fundamental ways that mean he can’t choose to be okay, _and Phil deserves okay_.

                Phil sets down his fork.  “I’m proud of you for that,” he says and just like that, he’s holding Dan’s hand.  “That’s really amazing.  You deserve that for yourself.”  Dan meets his eyes, dreading what he’ll see.  Phil points out, very legitimately, “But that’s not a reason to date you.”  
  
                “Didn’t say anything about dating,” Dan says, backtracking about as quickly as he can.  “Just, just a kiss, or I don’t know.  If you wanted to fool around—“

                “I don’t,” Phil tells him, firmly, still holding his hand, and that’s really what makes it so devastating—Phil doesn’t pull away and neither do all his expectations.  And Dan knows, _knows_ , that tonight he’s going to use, because Phil will leave early and Dan will need to forget this conversation.  But it won’t feel happy at all.  He’ll know he just disappointed Phil, but he had to do it anyway, as he’s a disgusting piece of shit.  It won’t feel good, but he’ll have to do it anyway.

                Or worse, he won’t care that he disappointed Phil.  It won’t even _matter_.  Nothing ever matters, no matter how much Dan wants it too.

                He pulls his hand away before his eyes actually overflow.  He’s not going to make a sound, so he grits his teeth tight and just shoves an arm over his eyes, making himself breathe.

                God, is Dan done with crying.  Nothing that has happened in his life is worth sympathy.

                “Dan,” Phil says, quiet, sad.

                Dan swallows.  “I’m fine.”

                “You’re allowed to be unhappy,” Phil says, sinking another knife right after the first, so you can’t blame Dan at all.

                “Oh, because you’re such a fucking prize,” he snaps, “I’m not crying over you, just what a fucking idiot I am—“

                “That doesn’t even make sense,” Phil interrupts, chair scraping back, but Dan can’t even entertain the possibility that he’s about to leave.  Phil hugs like an octopus.

                A warm, lovely, safe octopus.

                “Get the fuck off,” Dan growls for show, and it hitches in the middle.

                “No,” Phil says, “And I don’t care how mad you get at me either.  I’m here for you and I’m your friend, and feel free to hate that, but you can’t change either.”

                The food gets cold and they stay hugging until Dan grabs him by the collar.  He begs Phil not to leave.  “I’ll fuck up,” he’s choking, because the sobs broke through his teeth a long time ago and left him shattered, so every sniffle is painfully loud.  “I’ll fuck up, I don’t want to, but I will, I will—“

                “I can’t always stay,” Phil tells him, looking so frustrated, but he’s hanging onto Dan much tighter than Dan is hanging onto him, so whose fault is that?  “I can’t fix it for you, Dan—“

                “Don’t leave,” Dan pleads.  He doesn’t care if Phil can fix him.

                (Yes, he does.)

                This time Phil just says “okay” and like the fucking loser Dan is, Phil spends the night in his bed, in his arms, being his very platonic pillow, as Dan itches his way through.  His head is screaming at him.  Phil watches him try, sees Dan raking his nails down his skin and clawing at the mattress, anything to stave it off, until blood is drawn, until he can’t make the pain good enough anymore, and he’s so angry, and he’s angry at Phil too, because Phil stopped letting him try hours ago, just holding Dan’s hands and whispering to him like _words_ can make a difference against the poison in Dan’s body.

                “I hate this,” Dan says, because it’s important for Phil to understand that, in the scarce hours when Dan can still admit it, before he does what he always does.  “I hate it so much.”

                “Then stop,” Phil says—begs, really—and Dan makes it sound like he’s laughing when he’s really, really not.

                Neither of them get any sleep.

 ----

                Phil stays with Dan all morning.  Dan feels awful.  He’s sick.  He needs to stay home from work, but Phil won’t let him—won’t let him skip breakfast either, which churns in Dan’s stomach the whole ride to work at Phil’s side.  Their fingers are laced together, white-knuckled and tight.  The light is too bright.  Dan needs to lie down.  Phil keeps giving him the softest smiles, and Dan has to dig his own up and force them, because he just—Phil is trying. 

                Dan goes to work.  And he tries there too, just like he tried the whole way over in the cab, to admit that he’s—he hides things, sometimes.  Just in case things.

                But he didn’t tell Phil in the end, did he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, 2/3 the way through! Did you enjoy that tragic failure of a kiss? I think you did. 
> 
> Or, more specifically, I'm going to ignore all evidence to the contrary.
> 
> One more chapter to go, OH MAN. TENSION. FEELIN' IT.


	3. Chapter 3

_7) Impermanent Wanting_

                Dan’s glad that he’s not enough of a piece of shit that when he does take his lunch break—and spends it locked in the bathroom where no one will find out—he spends it hating himself.

                Fundamentally fucked up, right?  But at least he feels bad about it after all.  Better than the alternative.

                He can’t spend all day crying either, so he wipes his eyes and totters back out and the kind of job this is, no one will even notice if he’s high.  It’ll have time to wear off. 

                Phil said he’d be back to pick Dan up after work.  It’ll have worn off by then.  Phil won’t notice.

                They can fucking play pretend.

 ----

                Yeah, that’s all well and good, but Phil notices.

                It doesn’t even take him _two seconds_ , which Dan thinks is impressive because he’s walking steadily and not slurring when he talks; he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, personally.  But the smile drops right off of Phil’s face.  Dan stares at him, all of his mismanaged pieces sinking gently back where they belong, resigned to Dan’s fate.  For a moment, Phil looks so angry with him.

                Then he turns away and walks out the door without another word.  Dan stays frozen where he is. 

                He supposes that he’d be pissed too, if it were reversed—he kept Phil up all night for no reason.  How irritating, right?

                Anyway, now that Phil knows he’s a lost cause, the best thing Dan can do is just let Phil get back to his real life, his good life, and Dan can get back to—

                He doesn’t forget to take off his nametag, just goes sprinting out the door.  Where’s Phil?  Can’t see him through the pedestrians; why is everyone out shopping _today_?  So Dan runs.  He can’t even see Phil, but he runs because maybe Phil will be there just ahead, maybe, somehow Dan’s feet might just know where to go.  It makes no sense.  But somehow that is what happens—Dan catches sight of Phil’s spaceman jacket as he moves away rapidly.  He’s in time.  He’s in luck.  It almost makes him believe in something.

                He jerks Phil to a halt with the back of his jacket.  He’s dreadfully out of shape, Dan is.  He probably shouldn’t even be able to breathe right now.  Phil looks startled, and Dan gasps at him.

                “This isn’t what I want you to remember.”

                “Dan,” Phil begins, shaking his head, all primed to reject whatever comes out of Dan’s mouth, so Dan, because he’s desperate, shoves a hand over Phil’s mouth.

                “No, shut up,” he commands, shivering—right, he left his coat.  “I—fuck.  Don’t remember this.  You believe the best of the world, even when it’s not true.  And that makes you happy, right?”  Phil doesn’t move, so Dan nods fiercely.  “It _does_.  So believe that, Phil.  Walk away with your worldview intact.  Cause I’ve been a lot of shitty things, but I don’t want to be the guy who makes you believe you were wrong to care about things, so just remember the parts that were okay.” 

                Phil’s mouth moves under Dan’s hand and he reaches up to pull that hand away, so Dan blurts while he still can, “Please.  You can’t fix me, you’re right, so believe in your stupid prediction bullshit and be a huge dork and make your life everything you want it to be, okay?  And keep it far, far away from m—“

                Phil wrestles his hand down and interrupts him, too firm to argue with, “Dan, I can’t talk with you right now.”

                Dan’s whole body squeezes inward, attempts to implode, and he nods. 

                “I mean it.”

                “Yeah.  Yes.  I get it.”  He steps back.  His hands are still shaking, so he puts them in his pockets.  Now he feels like he can’t breathe.  It caught up to him after all.

                It’s only been a few days, he thinks.  Not enough time to develop a relationship he could _miss_.

                But it’s been so easy to caught up in Phil.  Every second counted, slowed to molasses the way it just doesn’t now that everyone’s an adult, and for Dan, after time has been racing circles around him, those slow days made up an eternity.  It’s like he’s known Phil all his life.  It’s like Phil was—

                Phil didn’t make him better.  No one can make him better.

                But—

                “Go home, Dan,” Phil tells him.  “Be safe.”

                “Yeah,” Dan says, swiping the sweat from under his eyes.  “You too.”

\----

                He goes home.

                He sits on the sofa a long while, glancing at his phone to see if Phil has messaged him.  He hasn’t.

                He watches an episode of Winnie the Pooh, but that doesn’t stop him shaking either.

                He paces.

                He shouts at his reflection.  _What are you DOING?_   No answer.  He spends a long time staring at the table where he didn’t finish dinner and Phil made him eat breakfast.  But you don’t get a do-over at life.

                And then he goes into the bathroom and grabs his drug of choice from under a stack of folded towels, rips the container open, and dumps it into the toilet.  He flushes it about three times before he can stop.  He’s shaking harder.

                There’s another one in the kitchen.

                Oh, why bother?  None of this matters.  He’s just wasting time, wasting money.  It won’t make Phil want to talk to him again.  Dan’s phone still shows no new messages.  He throws away another. 

                It’s strange, all the places he only now remembers putting this shit in his flat.  If he’d remembered these hiding places that weekend, none of this would be happening.

                So he only got to know Phil because he was stupid?  What kind of gimmick is that?

                He makes it maybe halfway through his stash before he can’t—he’s tired—

                And it doesn’t matter how much Dan has reduced the number by.  Phil is right.  Half is still half too many and Dan will use it the same way he’ll use every dose. 

                Because he’s broken.

                Because a long time ago he made a stupid, stupid mistake out of peer pressure and some awful thought that he could belong.

                Because he can’t fucking _stop_.

 ----

                Phil doesn’t come round the shop again.  Katie makes mention of this, which is only relevant because she’s the one among Dan’s coworkers who doesn’t take the opportunity to mock Dan about him being gay.  “You and Phil had a row, then?”  She turns the pages of her magazine as she lounges her feet on the cash register, everyone being so bloody professional here.

                Dan grunts in acknowledgement.  He got a broom out of the closet to pretend he has something to do.  He has no intention of actually sweeping the floor, just poking it interrogatively until it’s time to go home. 

                “Shame.”

                Dan finds his voice.  “Yeah.”

 ----

                All the while, Dan puts off going and seeing a dealer.  Sometimes knowing his flat is almost drug-free is really—well, don’t call it _nice_.  It doesn’t feel _good_. 

                It just—it means Dan gets to watch a few hours of Winnie the Pooh, is all.  Some kind of permission to touch that part of his past without leaving stains all over it.  It doesn’t really make sense.  He falls asleep on the couch a lot, wearing his headphones and feeling like a kid waiting for his parents to come home and make him feel okay.

                He’s also avoiding visiting his dealer because he thinks he might buy too much.

                In the back of his mind he knows he needs to even out again, and if he had that much in the first place, there must have been a reason and there will certainly be a demand.

                And then there’s the part where Phil hasn’t messaged him.

                It’s stupid, but it feels like maybe Phil will _know_ that Dan hasn’t gotten more. 

                Of course, if Phil knows that, then he can also probably gather that there’s a ‘yet’ tacked onto every denial and he knows Dan is counting down the hours until it’s really, properly time to get happy.  Dan knows it too.

                Just a matter of time.  Always is.

                He’s trying to fall asleep at checkout when the bell dings—Dan isn’t in a hurry to pay attention to his customer, so he grunts and waits to hear things being set down at the register.  Maybe he can pass out before then.

                It doesn’t come.  He cracks an eye open just to be sure he’s not gone mental out of sheer boredom.  There’s a bloke stood in front of him.

                “ _Phil?_ ”  Dan goes, and then promptly manages to fall out of his chair.

\----

                There’s something really, really comforting in the fact that Phil is still the same dreadfully stupid person who nearly knocks over the register to try to help Dan up, panicking over him the entire time while Dan just stares up in shock at Phil’s big, stupid face and tries to think of something to say.

                _Hi.  Thought you already went back to Manchester._

_You look like shit._

_Can I hug you?_

                Phil is the one with something to say, though.  “You mind, if,” he mumbles, jerking a thumb towards the exit.  “Wanted to have a chat.”

                And does Dan mind?  Yes.  None of the things he could say would make any sense.  He’d much rather just memorize Phil than try to navigate another conversation the truth can’t help but ruin.

                Would he still follow Phil right off the edge of a cliff?  Well.

                Dan stumbles along, because to hell with the shop for the next fifteen.  He doesn’t care if he gets fired.  He’s a terrible employee anyway, they all are, and he deserves it.

                “You look kind of awful,” Phil tells Dan once they’re outside, and Dan laughs, bottled up relief spilling out until he has both hands over his mouth.  Phil smiles too, weakly at first, but eventually his eyes crinkle, and it might as well be the warmest day of the year, for all Dan feels the cold.

                “That’s what happens,” Dan tells him once he can breathe.  “Payback’s a bitch.”

                Phil’s mouth opens slightly, then presses tightly together and he looks out over the street.  “Then you haven’t…?”

                Dan wants to say _I wouldn’t_ or even _never again_ , but those would all be lies.  He breathes out and sees it cloud in the air in front of him.  What he says is honest.  “I haven’t needed to.”

                “How?”  Phil asks.  Dan shrugs a shoulder.

                “I watch a lot of Winnie the Pooh,” he mumbles.  “Kind of hard to do it then, you know?”

                “Can that work?  As an ongoing thing, I mean.”

                Phil’s curiosity is morbid, especially the edge of hope in his tone.  Dan bites his lip.

                He breathes out.  “No.  Probably not.  I mean, you didn’t.  Sooner or later…”  He shrugs again.  “…Well, you already know.”

                Phil is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks, there’s a harsh edge to it, like he’s trying not to be angry, but it’s hard for him.  “You talk like it’s all inevitable.”

                Dan smiles at him.  “You’re the good one between us.”

                Phil cuts him off before he can say anything further, and now it is angry.  “That’s an _excuse_ , Dan.”

                Dan shrugs off his statement.  Phil’s not the first to say that, but if Dan being a failure is an excuse, it’s one Dan has kept on him since birth.  He wouldn’t know how to be anything different. 

                Change is terrifying enough and takes an unbelievable amount of strength, and that’s even if you haven’t rotted all yours away with some pathetic attempt at self-medication.

                “Look, not that I don’t appreciate hearing from you, but is this really what you want to talk about?”  Dan murmurs.

                Phil is quiet for a moment.  “More or less.”  When he looks over at Dan, he almost looks nervous.  “If I talk, will you listen?”

                Dan blinks at him, and the smile on his face is automatic, like the warmth in his stomach.  “You’re kidding me.”

                “I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Phil says, and Dan nearly laughs.

                “I thought you were the one who didn’t want it brought up!”

                Phil gives him a smile that is a shadow of its former self, but still present.  “Really?”

                “Talk to me,” Dan urges, and what he means is, _yell at me._   _Read me a story.  Anything.  I just want to hear your voice._

                Tension swirls through his blood and he’s still so happy it’s pathetic.

                “I hate what you do to yourself,” Phil says into the quiet that follows.  “It’s dangerous and scary and it holds you back.  You deserve better than this.  I deserve better than this from my friends.  I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.”

                That’s a very good way of saying it, laid out in neatly prepared categories for them to both look at. 

                “ _Thank_ you,” Dan murmurs.  It’s nice to finally hear that Phil looks down on it.  A relief that he loathes it, that he will never do anything so stupid to himself.  He gets it.  Dan finds it very easy to smile at him, whether or not he’s being friend-dumped.  Phil looks back, grave and tight-lipped.

                He’s not done.

                “PJ and Chris,” Phil says, taking a breath, “They’re two of my best friends in the world.  They both think I should have nothing to do with you after I explained things.  I respect their judgment a lot.”  He waves a hand.  “Not that you’re frightening—not in _that_ way—but at any point in time, you could destroy yourself and I’d have a hole left in my life if I let myself care about you despite knowing that.”

                “Okay, but that’s bullshit,” Dan says softly, “Because you don’t ‘let’ yourself care about anyone.

                Phil sucks in a breath.  The pedestrian traffic swirls around them and the sun gleams down and their problems are trivial by comparison to the universe.

                Phil answers, “Yeah, I’m a bit aware of that.”

                Quiet descends over them again, leaving them both staring out at the street.  Dan’s mind ticks away, clear for once, and maybe that’s because he’s sober, and maybe that’s because he’s next to Phil and time is moving by at the barest trickle again, so he has the time to think.

                Dan owes Phil an apology for a lot of things, but the one that comes out is, “Well, sorry I wasn’t meaner to you, then.”

                “ _Dan_ ,” Phil huffs, and the fondness bleeds through, leaving Dan smiling at nothing and swinging his feet.

                “What?  It’s true.  I did try to warn you off.  I was a right asshole.”

                “ _Was?_ ”  Phil mutters, and Dan laughs, and thinks he hears Phil chuckle too, just the littlest bit. 

                “I can’t fix you, Dan,” Phil says, and his voice breaks a little when he adds, “But I wish to _god_ and back that I could.”

                Dan’s throat closes.  He hears Phil composing himself, all deep breaths and rustling.  He nods.

                _Me too._

                And this is the end he’s been waiting for.  This is closure and goodbye in the kindest way.  All he has to do is open his mouth and tell Phil something like that too, like he tried to when Phil first walked away.

                But again, Phil isn’t done.

                “Because I love you,” Phil says.

                Whoa. 

                Stop. 

                Pause.  Dan’s heart expands like a water balloon. 

                “Sort of from the moment I saw you, and I didn’t even know what it was about you that I loved back then.  Mind you, I still have so much I want to know, and maybe you’re someone else entirely underneath all of this, or maybe I’m just infatuated and it’ll fade.”  He’s frozen Dan to the pavement, but Phil can still move, shifting to look at him dead on and steady.  Dan stares back. 

                This isn’t happening.  Phil doesn’t even want him.

                “The only times I’m mad at you, that’s what I’m mad about.  Because I want the opportunity to try, and I don’t get to find out because of this.  Because I would, Dan.” 

                Phil looks over at him, sudden and fierce, and Dan doesn’t get to spend another instant questioning whether Phil means it. 

                “When we’re together, it feels like I’ve been waiting for you to come into my life since you were born.”

                “Bullshit,” says Dan, automatically, before he registers his mouth moving.  And Phil, as though he isn’t planning on walking away, takes his hand.  He grins, and it fractures the sunlight.  It could blind a man.

                “But imagine if it were true.”

                It’s tempting, to just keep imagining.

                “If it were true,” Dan begins, and then his voice shudders horribly with what he doesn’t mean to say, “Then you’re fucking _late_ , Phil, because we could have—“  He can’t continue.  His voice chokes him off.  Phil is squeezing his hand. 

                He really, really hates the part of himself that tries to make it other people’s fault.  But that part is always there.  It’s hard to blame yourself when you feel completely out of control.

                “You want me to say I’ll stop,” Dan forces out, “But I can’t.  If I could have, I’d have done it by now.  I _want_ to.”  Phil’s hand squeezes harder and Dan moves mountains to, for once, say exactly the right words.

                “They say that’s all you need, that you just have to _want_ to quit, but that’s not quite true, is it?  Because you have to want to quit all the time, not just when you’re feeling brave, feeling like you deserve to stop.”  Dan sucks in a breath through his teeth, spitting it out miserable.  “You only have to want to start in _one moment of stupidity_ , but then you have to want to quit even when you hate yourself so much you want to die, even when you’re miserable, even when you’re terrified that if you do quit and drag yourself out of it all somehow, there won’t be anything of you left without the drugs that make you up.  You have to want it when your fucked up body is telling you that you’re killing yourself, that you need it like air and you’re fucking stupid for not breathing.”

                 You have to want it all the time.  And since growing up, the only emotion Dan can sustain for more than a few hours is wanting the damn drug.

                “It wasn’t always me,” he chokes, “I swear to Christ, you made me remember what I used to be like.  If I could turn back time, I would; I would do it so differently this time.”  The tears spill down.  “I would know better.  I would give it my _all_ to be somebody else.”

                Phil whispers, so close, so painful, “Isn’t it worth trying for now?”

                “I _am_ trying,” Dan snaps.  “But the thing is—I’m too fucked up to stop.”

                He was always fucked up and he _will always be_ fucked up.  That’s how this story goes.

                “That’s not true,” Phil tells him, but Dan just shakes his head. 

                See, Phil doesn’t get it.  He can’t.  No one can get it until they’ve been in the same position, and by then it’s too late.  Then it’s just waiting to die because you had your one chance at living and you screwed it up beyond compare.  You just haven’t gotten the game over screen yet.

                Phil saying, “I won’t give up on you,” just makes Dan’s eyes get wet, for putting that on Phil, for making him believe in a hopeless cause.  Who does that to their best friend?

                They’re not even best friends.  They’re nothing.  They barely know each other.

                (Facts refuse to matter; Phil feels like the best friend Dan never got to have.)

                “I don’t even love you back,” he groans, swiping at the tears because he’s disgusting, and he hates that.  “What are you doing?  You’re so stupid.”

                “Well,” Phil murmurs, “Maybe you will one day.  I guess I play the long game.”

                Maybe Dan will do what one day?  Love him?  Quit?  Be somebody?

                “The long game?”  Dan croaks, peering up and met with one of those sunny smiles he has no right to see.

                “Found you, didn’t I?”

                “Lucky fucking you.”

                “Yeah,” Phil murmurs to him, sweet as anything, like he’s made up his mind.  “Lucky fudging me.”

                And Dan doesn’t know if he will ever play the long game again, or the short one, any game at all.  He’s been going through the paces for the longest time—but he’s laughing through his tears right now.  Call him delusional.  But for a minute it’s _possible_ that Dan remembers what it’s like to get happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that completes the 50% vent prompt, 50% writing exercise Phanfiction thing that has been sitting on my computer, hope you're all mildly entertained. There are probably alternate dimensions where I go back over this and edit it until the writing isn't atrocious, but let's face it, we do not live in those dimensions.
> 
> Hasta la pasta.

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so I'm not expecting this story to do super hot; it's more of a vent dump than anything else, but it turned out well enough I don't want to kill it with fire, so here you go. Hooray for my _really_ awful writing.
> 
> Hope you enjoy the mild depression and ambiguous drug references? Um. Stay tuned for it to all go to shit really quickly.


End file.
